One of the nice surprises from E3 2011 was the Gearbox Software demo of the next installment of the Alien game franchise being released next year by Sega. Gearbox co-founder Randy Pitchford walked EGM through a preview of the first-person shooter, dubbed Aliens: Colonial Marines, at the show and talked in detail about how much the development group was enjoying adding their own vision to the Aliens mythos. Indeed, the game aspires to be a faithful continuation of the story popularized by James Cameron’s 1986 film and, from all early indications, succeeds in accomplishing this goal.

In this week’s edition of EGMi: The Digital Magazine our editors got a chance to speak with Brian Martel, the chief creative officer at Gearbox and one of the people responsible for breathing life into Aliens: Colonial Marine. In the interview he reveals some new info about what we can expect to see when the Colonial Marines deploy in the first half of next year.

One of the questions circulating after the initial demo was to what degree the game would incorporate vehicles and other equipment first seen in the film. “I think you can expect to see a lot of the military hardware you see in the movies,” Martel revealed to EGMi. “You’ll definitely see some APC stuff – and, yes, of course, we have to do something with the Power Loader.”

And what are the chances that we’ll see the battle leave the confines of the Weyland-Yutani terra-forming facility on LV-426? According to Martel, they’re extremely good.

“It’s going to be pretty diverse. From what [has been shown] in the demo you’re just planetside, but that won’t be our only location. “There are times when you’re onboard some ships – as you’d expect – and times when we’re in other places. Outdoors. Indoors. It will be varied,” Martel said.

Find out more about what Gearbox hopes to do with the storyline, if you’ll have to avoid the dreaded aliens’ acid blood, and check out our interactive preview and screens by reading the full interview.